In U.S. foreign policy, there are bogeymen and allies. Bogeymen are evil tyrants who oppose freedom. Allies are stable international partners. What one realizes (once they stop watching cable news) is that whether the U.S. considers you a bogeyman or an ally is...
David Adesnik over at the hawkish conservative think tank AEI asks, "why has the isolationism of Ron Paul and his admirers taken such a sharp turn toward amoral realism?" I cannot, for the life of me, yet again explain to a right wing hawk the difference between...
NSA chief General Keith Alexander's comments last week that he wants to "make it stop," where "it" is the journalism resulting from Edward Snowden's leaks, were widely reported and commented on. Here is the actual video clip of him saying it. Alexander is very...
Today the NYT runs a front page article headlined "(Susan) Rice Offers A More Modest Strategy for the Middle East." It should be headlined "Battle of the Titans: Israel Firsters versus China Haters." It tells of a policy review of the U.S. Empire's bloody strategy in...
Hundreds of folks turned out today in DC to protest NSA surveillance. The sign makers outdid themselves for this worthy cause -- [[ on Twitter - @jimbovard ]] Marching from Union Station to the base of Capitol Hill... Plenty of "Thank You Snowden"...
Let's face it, with rising public criticism of the Obama administration's drone war, embarrassing political posturing and shutdown politics on the domestic side, and unprecedented worldwide outrage over NSA spying, the U.S. government has seen better days (something...
In a commentary that appeared in USA Today, RAND Corporation senior adviser Brian Michael Jenkins praises President Obama's increased reliance on Joint Special Operations Command raids in place of drone strikes. "The two U.S. commando raids in Libya and Somalia this...
This well-reported article by Will Crisp at the Christian Science Monitor has two important findings. First, disparate armed militias are really who rules Libya, not the government. Second, these militias are motivated to wrest even more control over the government by...
Yesterday was the 30th anniversary of the bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut. The incursion into Lebanon was one of the biggest debacles of the Reagan administration. Unfortunately, though Reagan eventually recognized his folly and pulled troops out, other...
The list of former U.S. officials who believe drone strikes create more enemies than they eliminate juts got a little bit longer. "Drone strikes take out a few bad guys to be sure, but they also kill a large number of innocent civilians," writes Nabeel Khoury, the...
